May 6, 2020

Full Contrast: How a Pandemic Exposes and Amplifies Systems of Inequity, with Sara Taylor

Episode 44:

Sara Taylor earned a master’s degree in Diversity and Organizational Development from the University of Minnesota. She served as a leadership and diversity specialist at the University of Minnesota for five years and as director of diversity and inclusion for Ramsey County, Minnesota for three years.

Sara is the founder and president of deepSEE Consulting and has worked with companies as large as Coca-Cola, General Mills, 3M Company, AARP, and numerous others. She has a new book, “Filter Shift: How Effective People See the World,” that explores how our unconscious is actually making choices and decisions for us, all without our knowing — and how to change that.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Sara reads an article she wrote for Forbes titled Full Contrast: How a Pandemic Exposes and Amplifies Systems of Inequity
  • How COVID-19 is exposing many of the already-present injustices in our country in greater detail than ever before, and why injustices within our socio-economic, healthcare and education systems are of particular note during the pandemic
  • How “equality” and “equity” differ in focus and impact, and why our cultural focus on equality created systems of inequity that give systemic advantage to some but not all
  • Why those who are within the first three stages of cultural competence focus on equality rather than equity
  • How there is inequity in our education system that causes black, brown and poor kids of all races to be two years behind white and wealthier kids as early as fourth grade
  • How COVID-19 is impacting students who have limited or no access to the internet, with only 56% of households making $30,000 a year or less having access to the internet
  • How the average white family has significantly more wealth than the average black or Latinx family, and how unemployment rates are impacting blacks far more than whites
  • Why whites are twice as likely to be able to work from home, meaning black and brown workers are more likely to be forced to go to work, exposing themselves to health risks
  • How a staggering number of black people prematurely die in America every day as a direct result of racial inequities in healthcare
  • Sara shares state-by-state statistics of the disparity between the percentage of black residents of each state and the number of lives lost to the coronavirus

Additional resources: